Russia plans to mobilise 600,000 troops this year and next, Ukraine says

Russia is preparing to mobilise 600,000 additional soldiers over 2026 and 2027, Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate and Foreign Intelligence Service said, as mounting losses at the front and a collapse in voluntary recruitment push Moscow toward a second formal wave of conscription.

Ukrainian intelligence said Russia planned to call up 300,000 this year and another 300,000 in 2027, and that the Russian leadership had already made the decision.

Kyiv said the trigger was a combination of heavy battlefield losses, a loss of military initiative and a sharp fall in voluntary contract signings in its ongoing all-out war against Ukraine.

Russia's losses have been severe. Ukraine's General Staff said total Russian losses since the February 2022 full-scale invasion had exceeded 1.4 million killed and wounded.

In the first half of 2026 alone, Ukrainian intelligence estimated Russia lost around 240,000 troops, of whom 140,000 were killed or severely wounded.

In the same period, 232,000 people signed contracts with the Russian armed forces.

CIA director John Ratcliffe said in July that the average Russian recruit was killed or wounded on the battlefield within 20 to 30 minutes of arrival at the front.

The recruitment pool has narrowed sharply. Compared with 2025, the number of debtors, prisoners, migrants and others who had formed the main pool of voluntary recruits had fallen by 30 to 40% across several Russian regions, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

In Kurgan region, monthly recruitment targets have been met at 57 to 69% of the goal since the start of the year. In Volgograd region, the number of potential recruits had fallen 40% year on year.

The numbers are the lowest in the Oryol and Vladimir regions — in western Russia and near Moscow, respectively — and in the republic of Dagestan. Efforts to recruit students into the armed forces had also failed.

Female convicts, too?

Internal Russian documents, cited by Ukrainian intelligence, justified the need for new mobilisation by pointing to rising public dissatisfaction with the war — reaching as high as 69% in some regions — and the resulting decline in voluntary enlistment.

To prepare the legal ground, Russia has expanded eligibility for military recruitment.

People with unexpunged criminal convictions under 11 additional articles of the criminal code can now be called up, including those convicted of smuggling weapons, drugs or radioactive substances, banditry and organising illegal migration.

Russian authorities are also reportedly considering recruiting certain categories of convicted women.

An electronic summons system is already operational: once a citizen is entered in the registry they are barred from leaving the country, taking out loans, buying or selling property, using a driving licence or registering as a self-employed entrepreneur.

As of late July, more than 2,500 new vacancies related to mobilisation activities had been posted on Russian employment platforms, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he expects the decision to be announced after Russian State Duma elections scheduled for 18-20 September.

"Putin's strategy is clear — ballistic strikes. Then come the 'elections' in Russia. We are certain that after the 'elections' they will have a mobilisation. We believe it will not take place in the central cities. But I don't think they will be able to hide it particularly well," he said last week.

Zelenskyy described the approach as a "peripheral mobilisation" targeted primarily at Russia's regions rather than Moscow and other major cities.

Russia announced "partial" mobilisation on 21 September 2022. No official decree ending it has ever been issued, meaning the legal framework for conscription has technically remained in place for four years.